There is a storm blowing in from Paradise. Documents leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reaffirmed what most of us already at least suspected: that the wealthiest among us have an elaborate shadow network of financial infrastructure in offshore tax havens to skimp taxes in their home countries. In short, rich people are playing by different rules.

September 22, 2017

The Paradise Papers are noteworthy for two reasons. The first is the magnitude. The leaked documents come from offshore tax firm Appleby, corporate service providers Estera and Asiaciti Trust, and business registries of 19 tax jurisdictions. They concern about $10 trillion (USD) overall, which is quite a lot of money considering that total gross world production for 2014 was about $78 trillion. We are talking about the global high rollers table here.

The second is that they meet CanCon requirements. Over 3,000 Canadians were named in the leaks, and some of them have connections to the commanding heights of the House of Commons. Even our beloved head of state Elizabeth II was named in the papers. Her Majesty’s estate has millions of pounds tied up in a rent-to-buy retailer accused of preying on the poor, which is a shock because the hyperexploitation of unlanded labourers is not something you associate with a feudal monarch.

April 6, 2016

The real meat of the report is how many of our former prime ministers are enmeshed in the financial heart of darkness. Leaked memos reveal Paul Martin’s former company Canada Steamship Lines is one of Appleby’s biggest clients, and Jean Chretien is listed as the owner of 100,000 stock options in an East African oil company ever having a bank account outside of Canada, and says he doesn’t know about the stock options.) And lest anyone suggest this was a Liberal family affair, it turns out that Brian Mulroney sat on the board of the company that facilitated the largest arms deal in British history to Saudi Arabia.

Juicier still than the has-beens on the list is the revelation that Liberal fundraising bigwig Stephen Bronfman has not only amassed nearly $60 million in a shadowy offshore tax haven, and that the law firm representing Bronfman had been instrumental in lobbying the Canadian government against cracking down on overseas tax evasion. Coming on the heels of two months of a taxation trainwreck—and a grueling few weeks exposing just how comfortable Justin Trudeau is with plutocracy—this is not a good look for the prime minister. Again, we reiterate: the optics certainly make it look like the extremely rich people around the federal cabinet table don’t actually have the best interests of the “middle class” at heart. (Source: Vice)

Bill Morneau, Justin Trudeau left untouched by proposed new tax rules

The proposed new small business tax changes do not impact family trusts or numbered companies, used by Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to shield their family’s vast fortunes.

April 6, 2016

Trudeau’s personal wealth, which was inherited from his father, is held in numbered corporations. And Morneau has money in a family trust and numbered corporations.

The NDP took direct aim at Morneau who argued that the Liberals are going after wealthy people who try to use small-business structures to avoid paying taxes, but would not respond to questions about his family businesses and why the new rules leave out the sheltering of funds for both Trudeau and himself.

April 5, 2016

Morneau is the beneficiary of a number of Canadian companies on one hand, and on the other states “we also want to make sure that we do not have a situation where some people that are, frankly, very well compensated, pay a lower tax rate than others,” said Trudeau. (Source: Global News)